The ruins were wild.

I love The New Pornographers more and more.
Plus, you just can never go wrong with Neko Case and that voice.
That voice. She could sing about anything and I'd just get lost in it.
I know the album's been out for a little bit but it's just hitting me in the right way today so I felt like sharing it.

http://www.thenewpornographers.com/

It was so clear to me that it was almost invisible.

This decade is beginning to wind down and so I am starting to go through all the music of this last year. Revisit, recollect, reminisce.
2009 was a tough one for me, but more importantly, it was a rewarding year,
that included best of all - falling madly in love with someone who I'll soon be marrying.

Early in the year, I was living in Los Angeles for a brief moment and one lunchtime I was lucky enough to catch an acoustic and intimate performance of Neko Case at Hotel Cafe.
Dyrayll was visiting me then and it was the near-end of my time there in that sunny, lonely city and on the verge of moving out to New York.
Later in April, a few months settled in to living with one another and still wildly in love, Bailey and I caught her again at the Nokia Theater.

Middle Cyclone is one of my favorite albums of the year and Neko Case's beautiful voice has followed me around and feels so much a part of the soundtrack of my life in 2009 - a year full of change, fear, loss, courage, redemption, and love.
True, true love.

Congratulations to Neko on her Grammy Nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album.
She's got my vote.

http://www.nekocase.com/